Putting these wily tactics into practice, the Morisco chief, as soon as the Spaniards were fairly entangled in the defile, without waiting for them to come into order of battle, gave the signal; and his men, starting up from glen, thicket, and ravine, or bursting down the hill-sides like their own winter-torrents, fell at once on the Christians,--front, flank, and rear,--assailing them on every quarter.[71] Astounded by the fiery suddenness of the assault, the rear-guard retreated on the centre, while the arquebusiers in the van were thrown into still greater disorder. For a few moments it seemed as if the panic would become general. But the voice of the leader was heard above the tumult, and by his prompt and sagacious measures he fortunately succeeded in restoring order, and reviving the confidence of his men. He detached one body of cavalry, under his son-in-law, to the support of the rear, and another to the front under the command of his son, Antonio de Mendoza. Both executed their commissions with spirit; and Mendoza, outstripping his companions in the haste with which he galloped to the front, threw himself into the thickest of the fight, where he was struck from his horse by a heavy stone, and was speedily surrounded by the enemy, from whose grasp he was with difficulty, and not till after much hard fighting, rescued by his companions. His friend, Don Alonso Portocarrero, the scion of a noble house in Andalusia, whose sons had always claimed the front of battle against the infidel, was twice wounded by poisoned arrows; for the Moors of the Alpujarras tipped their weapons with a deadly poison distilled from a weed that grew wild among the mountains.[72] A fierce struggle now ensued; for the Morisco was spurred on by hate and the recollection of a thousand wrongs. Ill provided with weapons for attack, and destitute of defensive armour, he exposed himself to the hottest of his enemy's fire, and endeavoured to drag the horsemen from their saddles, while stones and arrows, with which some musket-balls were intermingled, fell like rain on the well-tempered harness of the Andalusian knights. The latter, now fully roused, plunged boldly into the thickest of the Moorish multitude, trampling them under foot, and hewing them down, right and left, with their sharp blades. The arquebusiers, at the same time, delivered a well-directed fire on the flank of the Moriscoes, who, after a brave struggle of an hour's duration, in which they were baffled on every quarter, quitted the field, covered with their slain, as precipitately as they had entered it, and, vanishing among the mountains, were soon far beyond pursuit.[73]